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Thursday, 5 May 2016

On a crisp December day in 2014, I sat in a tiny cafe on Golden
Square, eager to sample the pastries declared by my friend Tracey* as “the best
cinnamon buns in London”. But while the aforementioned buns were one of
the reasons I was looking forward to the meeting, it was another goal that was
making me excited and trepidatious in equal measure.

My fledgling business was less than 18 months old but already I’d
met a host of inspiring, friendly, supportive and thoroughly decent new friends
and allies. Tracey was pretty near the top of that list, and I had an important
question to ask her.

Working for myself after 20+ years in bustling offices had proved
liberating and isolating in equal measure. I loved the freedom to follow my
passions, but missed the perspective and sanity-checks that only come from
trusted colleagues. But I’d decided on the perfect solution – I needed a
mentor.

Luckily for me, Tracey immediately agreed to take on the role,
but with one caveat – I had to do the same for her in return. And so it began.

Fast forward another six months and I’m sitting nervously in
another eatery, just around the corner from the aforementioned pastries. This
time I’m waiting for another fellow games PR who’s also vying for a chart
position on the list above.

My first couple of years in business had gone better than I could
have hoped and I’d quickly got to the point of having to turn people away.
While it’s always a nice problem to have, I’d never enjoyed what felt like the
counter-intuitive process of turning work down. Luckily I’d run into Sam** from
Decibel-PR a little while after I’d started up, and had been able to send work
his way when I couldn’t take it on myself.

Plenty of people had told me to expand or hire someone else, but
I wasn’t in any rush to take on the overheads and risks of staff and premises.
Talking to the ever-wise Tracey at our regular mentor meetups, and after a year
of hearing nothing but glowing praise about Sam, I slowly began to realise that
maybe there was another way.

So as I sat in a Japanese restaurant in mid-May 2015, I asked Sam
to become my ‘partner agency’. We both had established businesses and
established clients, but we also both had finite time on our hands. By teaming
up to share someclients, and pooling our collective skills, contacts
and experience, we could both expand our empires, without expanding our
overheads.

We were growing our businesses without growing our businesses.

Within a week, Sam and I had signed our first 12 month contract,
pitching our shared abilities to a developer that needed more than either of us
could have given on our own. We’re still working on that project today, and our
collaborations and opportunities have continued to expand. But it didn’t stop
there. Nine months later, the whole thing grew again when Tracey joined our
merry band too. We still mentor each other but now we work together too.

The future of this industry is in working together and not
against each other, but unless you get out from behind your monitor and push
yourself to ask those scary questions in the first place, that collaboration
won’t ever be possible. We can build our futures while maintaining our
independence, all through the power of collaborating, not competing. If you’re
open, honest, generous with your time and your support, and prepared to seek
out what you need to hear and not just want you want to hear,
then joining forces with others can be a powerful driver to success for you
all.